Get real with these three contemporary artists

Up on the mezzanine at Havu is Jeanette Pasin Sloan, a small show by another photorealist. The Chicago-born, New York-trained artist has been exhibiting nationally since the 1970s. Her chosen materials are gouache and watercolors on paper. Sloan controls these fluid paints to an astounding degree in order to produce the crisply detailed pieces that look more like color photos than paintings. Her subjects are extremely complex still-life scenes that sport complicated background patterns with reflective and transparent elements like silver cups and crystal bowls in the foreground. The compositions are rendered with utter accuracy in regard to the original still life settings.

I'll be honest; I'm more comfortable looking at abstraction or conceptual art than I am at examining representational work. But I can't deny how much I love some of the styles it comes in. A favorite type of mine is American scene painting, sometimes called regionalism, that flourished from the '20s to the '40s. Because of the Broadmoor Academy and its successor, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center School, Colorado became a national center for regionalism.

"Entry into Roxborough Park, Colorado," by Joellyn Duesberry.

"A Moment in Time: Here," by Rick Dula, acrylic.

Details

Joellyn Duesberry: Landscape Survey

Through February 27, at Gallery 1261, 1261 Delaware Street, 303-571-1261, www.gallery1261.com.

Jeff Aeling, Rick Dula and Jeanette Pasin Sloan

Through February 20, at the William Havu Gallery, 1040 Cherokee Street, 303-893-2360, www.williamhavugallery.com.

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More About

• Joellyn Duesberry
• Jeff Aeling
• Rick Dula
• Christoph Heinrich
• Visual Arts

One of the top-tier artists from this time was Boardman Robinson, the school's director, who was known for his murals, including one in the humble U.S. Post Office in Englewood. Titled "Colorado Horse Sale," it's a lively scene filled with figures and horses. On a scale of one to ten, it's a ten.

But this being Colorado, that can only mean one thing: It's endangered — or it was. Discussions had been under way about closing the building and selling it. But that plan has been put on hold for the time being. Discussions are also under way to close and sell another historic post office, this one in Golden, where there's another gorgeous mural, "Building the New Road," a character-filled scene by Kenneth Evett, himself a student of Robinson's at the CSFAC.

Both murals are owned by the U.S. Postal Service and are likely to be removed if the offices are closed. If no effort is made to keep them here in Colorado, they may wind up in storage back east at the Smithsonian. If you haven't seen them, make the effort to do so before it's too late.